<p>I personally think companies need to err on the side of greater flexibility, since happy workers are usually more productive workers, but it is very clear to me that Mayer is coming in to turn Yahoo around. This is one fast way of downsizing by immediate attrition. Let people pinkslip themselves. Makes perfect sense.</p>
<p>In cases like this, the people with the most marketable skills leave because they can easily find work elsewhere while those that don’t have other options stay on and comply with the rules. Is this what Yahoo wants?</p>
<p>We had some WAH drama in my office today. There was a snowstorm last night, but although the roads weren’t great everyone made it in this morning (some a bit late). Except for one person–an employee who lives 75 miles away. (I should add that she is a single woman with no kids.) Today was the fourth day since January 1 she has not been in and has decided to “work at home.” She drives a really stupid car for midwestern winters, so even a bit of snow can make travel treacherous.</p>
<p>When she works at home, she notifies her supervisor, who then tells the department via email. She is never in the position of having to explain her absences, nor does she say what she is going to do on her WAH day. Because we are a team-oriented department and we rely a lot on in-person meetings and physical job jackets that we pass around, there is little that can be done remotely. Today several people complained about her absence causing problems in meeting deadlines, because she was scheduled for several brainstorming sessions and there were a number of projects that needed her attention.</p>
<p>During her WAH days, we hear nothing from her. No one has any idea what she is doing. I have talked with her supervisor about having her check in with the department, but mostly it is as if she is on vacation or out sick. </p>
<p>The point is, every workplace is different, and the impact of employees not being available hits some harder than others. In our line of work there is really no way to institutionalize WAH agreements, and this employee’s situation is starting to breed resentment among others who have equally long drives but somehow make it in. We are all also having to scramble to cover for her, but there is no way that she will be able to reciprocate. I am not suggesting that anyone risk their lives driving to work in bad weather. I am just saying that in my experience, accommodating some workers’ personal needs seems to come at a pretty high cost.</p>
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<p>That’s really the fault of her manager. Those of us who work offsite permanently are expected to be available for meetings via Skype and/or phone during the normal business day and to answer emails in the same time frame as would be done in the office.</p>
<p>The situation with sally’s coworker seems odd. Why is she allowed to get away with that, and nobody else is? Does she have a close relationship with the manager, or is she some sort of superstar? It is her choice to live 75 miles away. And if I had that issue and knew there was weather coming, I would come in early and spend the night at a friend’s house or a hotel, so I could get to work on time. I have shown up for work a day early, many times. You do what it takes to get there, and if you choose to live far away, that is your problem–not the companies or your co-workers.</p>
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<p>This is missing the point. We work in groups all day. We look at creative proofs and brainstorm on whiteboards. We are away from our desks a lot meeting with other people in the building. It isn’t possible to Skype/phone as a replacement for the frequent and often spontaneous personal interaction we need to have. Maybe in some businesses it works, but not in ours.</p>
<p>busdriver, she isn’t a superstar and doesn’t have a special relationship with her manager, but she is someone we value, and as you know finding and training new employees takes time and money. What you suggest is similar to what someone else in the department did this morning–she too lives over an hour away and left home at 5:30 am to make it in with time to spare for an early client call.</p>
<p>At my last office one of my direct reports suggested that employees should get one WAH day for every 25 miles they lived from the office. As I told her, “the office was here when you interviewed for this job.” </p>
<p>Like I said, I really don’t like WAH…but do understand that it works fine for a lot of people in a lot of organizations.</p>
<p>“Like I said, I really don’t like WAH…but do understand that it works fine for a lot of people in a lot of organizations”</p>
<p>Sounds like in your situation it’s working just fine for the WAH worker, but not for people that have to pick up the slack for her. The problem is, when someone keeps getting away with a behavior without repercussion, it becomes an expectation that they can continue to do it. It seems extremely unfair to the rest of the group to have to pull the load for this employee. I think I would consider telling the manager how difficult it is to have someone decide to stay home at the last minute, without notice. At least it would be out there in the open, and the manager can’t just duck confrontation and pretend he/she doesn’t notice the problems.</p>
<p>It’s fine if it works for the employee, the company, and the co-workers, but just selfish and unfair if it inflicts inconvenience upon everyone else.</p>
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<p>Exactly. I spoke with her supervisor today. I suggested the employee be asked to use leave time if she can’t make it in, which is exactly what I did when I had the WAH people making things difficult in my last office. That made it seem more “fair” to everyone else.</p>
<p>Again, so I don’t come across as a ruthless jerk of a boss–I don’t expect anyone to drive in unsafe conditions. But for people to refuse to come in because it might take longer and they already have a long drive does not seem like a legitimate excuse, especially when everyone else is undertaking risk as well. The interstate is usually much more clear than the local roads, anyway!</p>
<p>S1 & DIL work at a SV company and they are expected in the office. If they are on call after normal hours, they can be at home, but in general, they need to show up. OTOH, the facility is so nice and they are so well fed, it’s not a bad deal to be there! :)</p>
<p>I find it hard to get motivated to WAH. Too many distractions. Tip o’ the hat to folks who can manage it successfully. DH’s office allows telecommuting, and some of his staff takes advantage of it. He says he needs to be in the office to be focused, but the reality is that he spends plenty of time working at home/on conference calls/catching up on stuff anyway. That’s on top of his already crazy hours.</p>
<p>Mayer seems to want a cultural shift --perhaps to build more teamwork/collaboration/shared goals? Hope it doesn’t backfire. I also wonder if there’s be such an uproar if it were a male CEO making this policy change.</p>
<p>Good for you sally, you don’t sound like a ruthless jerk, but a reasonable person. It sounds like this woman is merely taking advantage and getting away with it. And yeah, if she can’t make it in, well, take leave like everybody else! She might think ahead a bit more if she had to do that.</p>
<p>Marissa Mayer has a lovely nursery she had built right next to her office. Presumably this is for her baby.</p>
<p>How about offering free, excellent quality, on site child care for her employees?</p>
<p>[Marissa</a> Mayer Criticizes Feminism - Business Insider](<a href=“http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-criticizes-feminism-2013-2]Marissa”>Marissa Mayer Criticizes Feminism)</p>
<p>This is the quote that blew me away. “I don’t think I would consider myself a feminist.” What part of feminism would she like to give back? The part where she wouldn’t be able to vote because she is a woman? Or would only be considered for a secretary, nurse, or teacher job if she worked outside the home at all? Or where she would have had to quit her job (not that she ever would have been able to be a CEO of a big company) and stay home for good once she was pregnant? Or maybe the part where she would be considered property of her husband? Sheesh. Blows me away that that generation has NO concept of what older women went through so she can be where she is today.</p>
<p>Some of us do and are quite grateful :o</p>
<p>Sorry, romani, I didn’t mean you. 
But she sure comes off as ungrateful (and uneducated) on the topic. D2 had a bunch of college age women counselors at a camp she attended last summer with a similar attitude. D told them to go watch the movie “Iron Jawed Angels”, then come back and dare say it again.</p>
<p>I have had some flexibility in the WAH arena in my current job and my last two jobs. I don’t WAH regularly but it would be nice if I did! Primarily, I worked at home when I had something I had to get done quickly and couldn’t have the constant interruptions that my last two jobs had when I was on site. Also, bad weather days, mildly sick days (as in-- don’t spread the germs, but felt up to doing work), days a contractor had to come to repair something, or days when I had a doctor/dentist appointment and I could get MORE hours in if I didn’t have to commute in the middle of the day. I would let my boss know what I was going to accomplish that day and I would accomplish it. In my last job and in my current job, we have inter-office IM so it is pretty obvious that we are online and available. IM is a primary way to communicate. Internet surfing over the VPN is tracked just like it is in the office. </p>
<p>In my current job, my boss lives in another country (ok, it’s only Canada, but still!) and she comes on site one week a month. We communicate many, many times a day to collaborate, plan, etc. The company is global and there are often conference calls with people from Europe, Asia or South America. Almost every meeting held is held over WebEx and from a conference room so if people are on site, they are in the room together and others are on the phone/WebEx. If you have the right tools, it works great. If you don’t have those tools, it would be useless. </p>
<p>My boss was on site for my first 3 days of working at this job. She came back this week. So I’ve been there for 6 weeks and have only seen her 6 of those days so far. It’s interesting, but it works out fine. It has been nice having her on site this week, going to lunch, getting to know her personally, etc. As our team continues to grow and as I get more on my plate, she hopes to cut down her on site time. </p>
<p>She does leave for 15 minutes to take her kids to school and pick them back up. I take 15 minutes to run to the snack shop in the afternoon. Is there really a difference? She’s always online when I get in first thing in the morning and she’s almost always still online when I leave at the end of the day. She accomplishes a lot. </p>
<p>I think Ms. Mayer is going to lose a lot of talent though. In the IT world, most work can be done from anywhere, unless you have to touch the hardware. The real talent can pick and choose their ideal job situations.</p>
<p>Actually, after reading that I understand where she’s coming from. Feminist has become such a negative term that many shy away from it even if they believe in feminist causes. </p>
<p>Not saying I agree, just understand. Many of my generation do not really truly understand what women went through. I only do because I’ve made it my life work. That, and I’m pretty sure my grandmother would haunt me if I ever shied away from what she dedicated her life to.</p>
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<p>With the exception of the focus on her parenting choices, yes…there would be an uproar. </p>
<p>The policy she’s implementing is very conservatively corporate and something many IT/technology workers feel is more fitting to more formalistic stiff industries such as banking/financial services or big-law where face-time in the office…especially for junior & mid-level employees is mandatory and telecommuting is regarded either as a perk of more senior folks* or as a way to extend the working hours well beyond standard public business hours.** </p>
<p>While that’s great if they’re working in biglaw or a Wall Street bank, it’s not something the less hierarchically obsessed more anarchic freewheeling IT/technology employees working for technology firms like Yahoo would likely accept without vociferous umbrage. </p>
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<li>In one financial services firm I worked for, it was a perk reserved for managers who are only two reports or less removed from the CEO of the entire firm. Everyone else, including my immediate supervisors all had to report into the office with the possibility of telecommuting to address technical or content issues outside of standard business hours.</li>
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<p>** One common joke bandied about in such firms was how the “Crackberry” was the modern equivalent of a ball and chain tethering employees to the office 24/7.</p>
<p>I’ve worked in Silicon Valley 20+ years and watched the tech community change. Those of us who worked for startups in the 90’s didn’t have the same level of entitlements that the younger workforce is accustomed to now. Sure, we got free sodas and people brought dogs to work. We had opulent holiday and ship parties. But most of the really brilliant workers put in long hours for the love of the game. Working from home was simply a way to work longer hours after you left the office. Then we got older and kids came along and WFH changed from a sometime convenience to a way of life. </p>
<p>These days Google, Facebook, even Apple bribe workers to put in longer hours by providing everything a young person needs on campus. Food, games, laundry, salon… The inside joke at one company is that they better hire more women developers so the geeks can find companionship. I think Yahoo ended up with a lot of burned out older workers who were laid off from other companies over the years. Maybe Mayer is just trying to shake things up. It must have been a shock going from Google to Yahoo.</p>
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<p>That’s a very good question, and I haven’t been with the company long enough to answer it definitively.</p>
<p>I do know that some managers’ jobs involve a lot of face-to-face meetings and therefore might be incompatible with extensive or full-time telecommuting. I also know some telecommuters who have no interest in being promoted specifically because their current arrangements might not be workable if they were in a different position. So my feeling is that yes, it does interfere with promotion.</p>
<p>But not everyone is seeking promotion.</p>
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<p>Much of the rest of the world isnt so self-absorbed w conceit that a childs mother needs to be there 24/7 or else the child will be damaged or society is going to collapse.</p>